In a field of bookbinding, a commercial printing, a card business or a plastic molding such as a cosmetic container, a printing processing treatment called a “foil stamping” is conducted. This treatment is also called a “hot stamp method”, and by using a pressure bonding member called a metal stamper, a text or a picture made of a metallic foil is transferred to a base substance surface by heat and pressure, a metallic appearance or an expensive look can be achieved which cannot be expressed merely by common printing. Further, in recent years, a foil transferring technology has been developed to make a hologram on a cash card or a credit card in order to prevent falsification or alteration, or for the security of these cards.
A foil used for the foil stamping is supplied as a transfer foil. An example of a transfer foil has a structure which contains a resin film substrate and a wax layer on the resin film substrate, and on the wax layer, there is provided a foil composed of a protective layer, a transfer material layer and an adhesive layer. A generally used transfer material layer is formed by vacuum deposition of metal or using an ink. The technique to produce a transfer foil has been improved in accordance with the enlargement of the market of the transfer foil. For example, there have been advanced researches on a transfer foil having a protective layer containing an organic silicon compound and a reactive organic compound in view of improving the durability of a foil image, and on a transfer foil having an electron beam curable adhesive layer by which a stronger protective layer is formed by irradiation with an electron beam after peeled from the support (for example, refer to Patent Documents 1 and 2). Since many of these transfer images used for the prevention of falsification or for security of the cards contain a precise pattern, it is required to accurately transfer the image without causing a problem such as a burr or missing of the foil. In accordance with such a requirement, there has been examined a transfer foil by which, by incorporating a polymer liquid crystal material in a transfer layer, a precise-shaped label is accurately transferred without causing defects such as burrs or missing of the foil (for example, refer to Patent document 3).
On the other hand, it has been examined a process to conduct foil transfer without complicated steps. For example, there was proposed a technique to form a toner image on an image supporting substrate, then a foil is provided thereon by adhesion. Specifically, a predetermined design image is formed on an image supporting substrate by using a toner, followed by heat-pressing a transfer foil onto the formed toner image, resulting in transferring a foil (for example, refer to Patent document 4). In this technique, by synergistic effect produced by an adhesive force formed by softening or melting of a toner and an adhesive force formed by melting of an adhesive layer of a transfer foil via heating, a strong adhesion between an image supporting substrate and a foil can be realized. Further, there was proposed a technique for transferring a metal foil on an image supporting substrate. In this technique, a toner is preliminary adhered on a an image supporting substrate, then a transfer foil is laminated thereon, and it was hot pressed with an iron, followed by peeling the film substrate of the transfer foil from the image supporting substrate (for example, refer to Patent document 5).
In these foil transfer techniques which use a toner, foil transferring can be carried out without using a metal pressing member which is required in the conventional technique, resulting in reducing necessary time for a foil transfer process or simplifying an apparatus of a foil transfer.    [Patent document 1] Unexamined Japanese Patent Application Publication (hereinafter referred to as JP-A) No. 9-1995    [Patent Document 2] JP-A No. 2007-15159    [Patent Document 3] JP-A No. 2009-90464    [Patent Document 4] JP-A No. 1-200985    [Patent Document 5] JP-A No. 2000-127691